Since the first congress took place in Denmark in 1949, every year the Esperanto-Railwaymen meet, mostly in May, for the big annual event. And since the start of FISAIC in 1952 IFEF has been a steady partner and worthy association – even a first mover for FISAIC in several countries.

This year round 200 people from 16 countries – from South Korea to Ireland, from Sweden to Spain, met in the Casa Diocesana on the outskirts of Malaga, where there was enough space and facilities for all meetings, cultural programmes and accommodation.

The congress week was a bit longer this time, because the congress was three-in-one: The Spanish Esperanto-Congress, the Andalusian Esperanto-Congress and the IFEF-Congress. The Agenda offered a rich variety of organisational meetings, AGMs of the three societies, technical and terminological sessions, cultural evening programmes and excursions.

For IFEF, a big thing this year was the election of a new Board of five people, who for the next three years will lead the organisation forward.

The new Board consists of (from left) Vito Tornillo (IT), Jan U. Niemann (DK), Rodica Todor - President (RO), Laurent Vignaud (FR) and Ladislav Kovář (CZ).
A very important thing for IFEF is the implementation of Esperanto in the technical language of railway employees, and every year there is a session of shorter or longer presentations. The presentations and lectures were very different, interesting and sometimes challenging for the audience:

• Plans and accomplishment of the project, Køge Nord Station south of Copenhagen (DK)
• AVE to Mecca
• Vintage train in Romania
• Transport by bike and train
• Interplanetary travel
• City transport concept of Zagreb (HR)
• Hyperloop
• Integrated information service on stations

For the IFEF-Congress next year a leaflet will appear with all these presentations as articles.

An excursion took the ‘railway group’ to the village of Ventas de Zafarraya, where a ride with El tren del Llano was included.

FISAIC is an International Railway Art & Culture Association. FISAIC signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UIC on 1 December 2016. FISAIC aims to promote and support cultural activities of the railway personal of all nations in their leisure time, to establish relations among the creative railway personal of the national associations and unions in order to organise cultural events and contribute to development of cultural motivation and activities.